ironstrange headcanons

"i could've done better"

major character death

requested from my friend Max ❤️

stephen finally got his job back after a few years of training in Kamar-Taj. his hands aren't shaking anymore and they don't hurt. he is now a surgeon, which means he knows how to do other surgeries apart from the brain ones.
he's been increasing the number of saved lives in town since he got back at it again.
however, sometimes things don't go as planned.

tony is at the avengers headquarters, in his office, monitoring every movement of every person there.
a suspicious activity can be seen in the underground garages.
it seems like there are two people arguing about something.
tony, as order to make the lives of everybody peaceful and safe, goes there, to see if he can do something for them.
as he leaves the elevator, a loud rumor echoes through the room, followed by flames and pieces of metal, glass and concrete.
tony got directly hit by all of that in a matter of a second. he's now on the ground, wounds all around his body, foreign bodies inside his vital organs.
Natasha, after hearing that rumor, immediately goes there, a look of terror as she sees tony struck on the ground, his clothes soaked in blood.
she dials 999, as she looks for other victims. apparently, this was an attack made for him, since there weren't other bodies.
as the ambulance comes, tony is currently unconscious for the massive loss of blood.

meanwhile stephen is still at the hospital. he just finished a surgery. he got advised that he had to get prepared for another operation of a guy with a torn body, foreign bodies inside him and in a very bad condition.

the ambulance is in the parking lot of the hospital, at the entrance. the nurses rushes in the operating room in which there's stephen.

the face of shock and pain that stephen made after seeing his boyfriend on that stretcher with a torn body was heartbreaking.
"t-tony."
he says in an inaudible tone, shaking and crying.
"doctor, there's no time to get emotional over a person!" an assistant says
"HE IS MY BOYFRIEND!" he shouts, breaking down.
all the people in the room look at him in shock and then, look down in embarrassment.
"he is dying and i don't know what to do. what happened to him!?" he says, trying to calm down, still shaking.
"there was an explosion at the avengers headquarters. he was the only victim. they all assume it was just for him." a nurse says, in a kind way, voice breaking at the end of
the sentence.
"god.. i knew something was coming. i need to operate him or he's not gonna make it."
he says, looking at tony.
stephen starts cutting the clothes, tears coming out from his eyes as he sees the body.
pieces of glass embedded in his torso and opened wounds in which you can see the organs spitting out blood.

he wipes away his tears.

"okay. i can do this, come on. think it's just a random person. don't let the feelings overwhelm you." he thinks, getting the scalpel and medical tweezers to remove the little pieces of metal and glass around tony's ribs.
his hands are shaking for the emotions. he needs to concentrate or he's going to lose him.
he concentrates and gently removes all the little pieces that can be seen and puts them in the metallic bowl.
it's time for the hard part. he has to open him up and gets all the little splinters in the surface of his lungs and heart.
only god knows how he was still alive after having a massive piece of metal in his lungs.

he needs to be careful but also fast. time is everything now. he starts to remove the biggest splinter, scared that he's going to mess up.
the adrenaline keeps him steady and emotional over tony's accident, but somehow he manages to get through it.

he never thought this was gonna happen now.

the monitors starts beeping loud, which implies tony is having a cardiac arrest.
stephen starts panicking.
"HANK, THE DEFIBRILLATOR! NOW!" he shouts, eyes fixed on tony
"please don't leave me. stay with me." he says softly, hoping that after the shock, his heart would be beating again.
1...

2...

3...

shock.

tony's body jumps as the electricity hits him.
nothing happens.
they try again and again.

surprise. his pulse is very weak but his heart is beating again.

stephen, still with tears in his eyes from the thought of having lost him, smiles and sighs in relief.

he doesn't know what's gonna happen.

as he keeps operating him, something very unusual happens.
tony wakes up, screaming in pain.
stephen got scared and stabbed tony in the heart with the scalpel.
tony immediately stops screaming and has a panic attack. he apparently can feel the pain even with the anesthesia running in his veins.
stephen is terrorized, he can't focus anymore as he looks at tony's eyes full of tears and fear.
"calm down, please, you're gonna die! tony i am here, you're going to be okay!" stephen says, calling other doctors to perform the surgery, since he doesn't want to mess up anymore.
they raise up the level of morphine and after a minute, tony falls asleep, certainly exhausted from the pain.
stephen enters in the other dimension with his astral body, managing to get tony in that form too.

s: oh tony.

he hugs him tightly as he cries in his shoulders

what did you do, love? you promised me to stay safe.

t: i.. that.. that was not my fault. you know i need everything to be okay there, and that i don't want people to argue or make mess around the headquarters.

s: you could've sent somebody else, tony. please don't leave me. don't do that. stay strong for me. please. i can't do this without you. i'd blame myself for the rest of my life.

tony doesn't talk and hugs him even tighter

t: i can't promise you to survive this. the pain was too much. stephen.. i love you so much. i always will. if i don't survive.. please don't.. don't do things you could regret. you have a life ahead you and-

he got interrupted by stephen

s: my life is you! i really don't know what i will do if you're gone! i can't do this alone. i can't be peter's mentor. i'm not good enough for that.

t: if you weren't good enough, i wouldn't have chosen you as person to spend the rest of my life with.

stephen doesn't reply. he looks at tony deeply in the eyes and cries. he would give everything he has to make him live

s: don't go. i am not ready.

t: i will.. try to. i love you, stephen. more than words could ever explain.

he kisses stephen for the last time and disappears.

those are the last words tony says before his death.

"no NO!" stephen says, heartbroken.

when he comes back in his normal form, he finds himself in another room on a stretcher.
he gets up and goes in the room in which there's tony.

"no.. no.. NO!" he says, running near tony's dead body, crying and shaking.

"you promised.. you.. this is all my fault."

stephen never got over tony's death.
he never stopped loving him for one second of
his life.
he had to be strong for him. he had to be strong for peter.
he promised to keep peter safe, till his last breath.

he lived all of is life blaming himself for Tony's death.

life and death, energy and peace,
if i stop today, it was still worth it.
even the terrible mistake i've made and would have unmade if i could.
the pains that have burned me and scarred my soul, it was worth it, for having been allowed to walk where i've walked, which was to hell on earth, heaven on earth, back again, into, under, far in between, through it, in it, and above.

"it's good to see you again, Tony."